


semicolon

by fated_addiction



Series: semicolon [9]
Category: K-pop, Real Person Fiction, Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 20:32:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13666773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: "serious conversation."or, that time wendy is really particular about punctuation.





	semicolon

-

 

 

 

 

 

"serious conversation."

wendy blinks. twice. "wait, what?"

"serious conversation," irene repeats. they're in the kitchen. "you," she gestures with her coffee cup, dragging her hand back to herself. "and me."

"use your words though - a serious conversation about what? the kitchen? our schedule? that time joy broke something in the bathroom but both yeri and seulgi covered for her because she's working too much and so are you?"

irene narrows her eyes. "i _knew_ it," she mutters. "but no, not that?"

wendy stares. it's not often that irene touches on anything that's bothering her. vaguely, she struggles to remember what it is that she did. did she say something? she can't remember saying anything. irene usually makes this _face_ when wendy says something that bothers her. her nose scrunches. her eyes close. like she's trying to calm herself. irene's usually pretty open. she never actually says the words, "you pissed me off." but she'll touch wendy on the arm. or the elbow. gently drag her back to her side and say something like: "hey, let's start over?" because a leader is a leader is a leader.

so wendy studies her from her seat at the table. draws her legs up onto her chair. leans against her knees. she frowns. in response to irene frowning. because that seems like the best thing to do.

"you're about to burst," she remarks.

irene flushes angrily. "no, i'm not."

"you are." wendy points to her own face. "you're red."

"sure, okay," irene dismisses quickly. she turns from her spot. she's leaning against the kitchen counter and when she pushes away from it, her grip on her mug tightens. "i'm blushing."

"i don't get it?"

irene sighs. her expression changes. she looks a little lost. distressed, even. wendy tries to reason with herself: it can't be that bad, right? except, then, irene's mouth starts to tremble and she's holding herself back.

"are you _crying_?" wendy asks gently. incredulously too. she shifts to stand, but irene holds a hand up. "joohyun-ah, you're going to start worrying me. you know how i get when i'm worried."

"i'm in love with _you_ ," irene blurts. like she's said it for the first time. this isn't the first time; it might the fourth time, possibly the fifth. because they've spent a year of confessing to each other. it's a problem.

but irene looks distressed - definitely distressed, this time. her face wrinkles into something that's painful and raw and terrifying. she is holding herself back, wendy realizes. maybe panics. and she's standing without thinking. irene turns her head. wendy stops herself.

"oh." her voice is husky. "okay."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love isn't linear.

it can't be. much of her life has followed a particular traction: her parents wanted a doctor, a lawyer, a lover of languages, but wendy sang until her voice cracked and that was it, then then and there, she was determined to do it her way. it's painful. her life though, it never had any room for irene. for joohyun. it wasn't planned. she didn't think about it. there's not supposed to be room in this life to connect with other people; you belong to people and hide the rest of yourself, safety nets for when you need a break, a real break.

wendy can't remember the day she found herself in love with irene. she's sure irene doesn't remember either. they've told each other countless of times. it's you. _i_ love you. keep it together. it's just never selfish. stolen moments become exhausting to a point; it's never moving forwards, it's never moving backwards, you just _are_ and it's the cruelest way of treating yourself.

but she's in love with irene. she can see herself with irene, here, now, then, moving forward.

she just didn't know that this was going to turn into breathing.

being in love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

they don't talk about it.

"eat," she says to yeri. days later, after irene's weird, tearful confession in the kitchen. she's packed fruit. there's a bag with more food. "before you go," she adds, rubbing her eyes. "and tell taeyeon unnie that she needs to eat too."

yeri laughs softly. "unnie, you're being weird."

wendy shrugs.

she's tired. things aren't slowing down. it's a little overwhelming. she's only been back home for a couple of hours, after a radio schedule, and her body already feels like it's turning itself inside out. she should sleep, she thinks.

"are you okay?"

wendy blinks. "hmm?" yeri's laced her arm through hers. "yeah." wendy smiles softly, ruffling her hair. "i'm okay. just need to sleep a few hours. have coffee. and then i'll be human? maybe."

yeri snorts. "have two cups," she teases.

wendy rolls her eyes. yeri bounds off, hands full of bags. alone again, she listens to the sounds in their apartment. the dorm is weirdly quiet even with everyone else home: music comes out of seulgi's room, joy is in the living room with scripts and a movie, and irene, asleep. maybe, probably. without having much to say.

it's how she somehow finds her feet anyway. her hands grab a juice from the counter. she wanders down the hall. to irene's room. yeri's gone, she reminds herself. even though it's kind of unnecessary. her hand poises into a knock, but the door is open. irene sits on the bed with a book. her back is against the wall. she isn't reading; the book isn't open.

"can we talk?"

she's surprised that she speaks. on the bed, irene looks up.

"about -" irene sees her and stops. "oh."

wendy frowns.

"sorry." irene looks away. rubs her face. "it didn't mean to come out that way -"

"it's okay if it did."

irene snorts.

"i don't know what you want me to say," wendy says. leans against the doorframe. "we've had this conversation countless of times, where you and i have said the same _thing_ but there's no real moving forward."

the expression that irene wears changes. she looks tired. wendy feels guilty. it lodges itself into her throat.

"you're right, seungwan-ah," irene murmurs.

"but that doesn't matter? it's not about being right. it's what happens now. i know you love me. you know i love you. like to the point where i can't breathe. or get angry thinking about this. or frustrated. or sad. or any number of things. i didn't mean to start feeling like this. it just happened and i just -" she stops, laughs, and covers her face with her hands. her throat starts to burn. "what now? do we date? do we tell the others? is this exclusive? do you know how heavy this is, worrying about what we do after - does anyone ever talk about the _after_ , joohyun-ah. because i don't know what to do?"

irene says nothing. wendy wonders if she expected this from her. it's actualized, all of this. the burning sensation in her throat. the sudden, sweaty palms. the way her heart feels like it's going to jump from her chest. her eyes feel wet.

"what do you want to do?" irene asks. slowly, softly. her legs dangle off the bed.

when did she move, wendy wonders. "what do _you_ want to do?" she counters.

it's five, long steps from irene's bed to the door. to irene towering over her. her fingers lace into wendy's hair, curling into the strands and twisting them around her knuckles. she's inches away from her.

"i want to kiss you," irene says quietly. her eyes are bright and her mouth opens. she wets her lips. "first," she says. "that's what i want to do _first_. i don't know what comes next. i don't know if there -"

wendy kisses her. first. hard. pushing her into the frame of the door. because she doesn't want to talk anymore. irene half-laughs, half-moans into her mouth and her fingers travel from the ends of her hair to her scalp, dragging against it. irene's mouth is hot. it uncurls the knots in wendy's stomach. when she presses her tongue into wendy's, wendy feels her head start to spin. this isn't fair, she thinks. i can't think, she wants to say. instead, her leg slips between irene's and they're knocking back into the groove of the wall.

they're a mess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"there should be directions to this."

in bed, irene laughs. it's soft and husky. embarrassed mostly - earlier, sooyoung came and wrinkled her nose and said, "glad you figured your stuff out, but like the rest of us need to keep hating _romance_!" or something like that. because sooyoung is trying to get into character. or pissed about seulgi. one, or the other, or both.

irene's mouth is on wendy's collarbone. "we're dating," she says.

"like officially?"

"officially." irene pokes wendy's nose. "you think too much."

"coming from you," wendy says dryly, "that's a lot."

under the blanket, their legs are bare and tangled. wendy watches irene's chest rise and fall with every breath. nothing about this is neat. maybe that's part of her problem - wanting each aspect of her life to be categorized, fit into a place. because that means there's a question. and that there's an answer. 

"you make sense to me," wendy says. out loud. her mouth turns and she groans, covering her face with a hand. she shifts onto her back. "it sounds super callous, so sorry. i just... it's kind of like breathing. you and breathing. it makes sense to me."

irene rolls onto her side. curling into wendy. "i think that's supposed to be the way to look at it? for me, it's all these knots and butterflies and this incredible pain. not that i hate being in love with you -" she growls and laughs. "i mean, i didn't think i needed someone like this. that's the painful part. the scary part. like when i go home to my mom and family, that longing kind of dissipate. i remember that i'm me. you make me want to be just _me_."

wendy kisses her. softly. mostly, it's because irene doesn't say things like this. often, or lightly. it's never been in her nature. for wendy, it's a little different. she thinks. she says. she gets angry and sad. for her, being in love with irene burns. the come after part? she's got to learn how to not worry. that's what she does. worries.

"promise me -"

"what?"

"promise me," wendy repeats, "that you'll let me know if i'm being too much. or if you don't want to talk about something, that you'll let me know. or that if i need to be angry with you - you'll let me do that too."

irene's mouth curls against her shoulder. "i do that already," she says softly.

"i know." wendy's mouth touches her forehead. "just saying."

it's not a bang, it's not a whimper. it's just simple. wendy, irene, and whatever this is going to be. the stuff that comes after? it's whatever, wendy thinks. reassures herself. but mostly, that reassurance belongs to irene's fingers skirting over her stomach. under the hem of her shirt. into slow, lazy circles. she's okay with this, she thinks.

she's okay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(yeri, back from taeyeon's, stares at them in the kitchen. there's breakfast; wendy's legs are in irene's lap as she picks up her fruit.

"ugh." her nose wrinkles and seulgi starts to laugh. "you guys are so _boring_."

there's that too.)

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't intend on ending this? but then suddenly it became a series and suddenly i needed to tie everything together. so here we are, lol. tying things together.
> 
> hope you enjoy!


End file.
